Issue 28 Grief and LamentBlog | On film: Loss, change and navigation of grief
On film: Loss, change and navigation of grief
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 17.09.21
Loss is a presence. Or so it can often seem: we don’t just live with the absence of what’s gone, but with a new everyday reality, changed in ways we wouldn’t have chosen. Grief is a navigation between these two places – not a linear journey but an uncertain, repeating spiral. Memory grows muddled, time loses its meaning. We can never go home again.
Cinema as an art form might be particularly suited to capturing this strange experience. And The Father, the acclaimed drama which opened in cinemas this summer, finds a unique way to portray the spectre of loss.
Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) is 81 years old. He lives alone in his London apartment and refuses all of the nurses that his daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman), tries to impose upon him. He’s fine, he insists repeatedly, he can look after himself: but the truth is that his world is falling apart.
People in Anthony’s life seem to change their faces and identities at random. Events repeat themselves or happen in the wrong order; objects in his home move around or disappear. Is he going mad, or caught up in some kind of horror story?
The truth is both more ordinary and more poignant. Anthony has dementia, and in an unusual twist, we’re witnessing the process of confusion and disintegration through his own eyes. For a while this gives the film the excitement of a thriller, as we put together the pieces to make sense of what’s happening – but it also creates a one-of-a-kind exploration of grief.
